


your body told me in a dream it's never been afraid of anything

by artemistics



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Remus Lupin-centric, could be read as wolfstar though it was not the author's intention and she only just realized, remus has some food issues, tempted to call this a character study?, they're hardly there but i thought i'd mention it just in case, unsubtle dream symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25643404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemistics/pseuds/artemistics
Summary: Remus can’t say anything. He can’t be the one who makes this worse.
Relationships: Sirius Black & Remus Lupin, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	your body told me in a dream it's never been afraid of anything

Remus dreamt of a house devoid of furniture, naked of humanity and haunted by strange spirits who protected him from the biting cold of the outside. The walls were a deep hue of fern green, too dark in contrast with the soft brown of the wooden floors, and through the bay window he caught sight of a forest, vast and deserted. It was covered by a thick layer of fresh snow; small piles of the fallen ice crystals were caught on the bare branches of several tall trees, their thin and twisted arms like stark shadows against the baby blue painting the clear morning sky.

He didn't do anything other than watch through the glass, drinking in his surroundings. Admiring, more like. The world looked gelid and lonesome, the way a single, haunting and pained cry coaxed out of a piano by amateur fingers right before the deafening silence that follows would look like, but there was some beauty in the isolation of the landscape. Something about the hollowness of it all drove him out of the house and into the forest.

There were blackbirds flying from their refuges at the top of the trees, taking off and getting lost past the white beaming spot above — the sun — and with each of his steps, his feet sank into the snow just a little deeper and deeper and deeper, without ever finding the ground beneath. He felt the air in his lungs pristine clean, cleansing the black mould stuck to the rotten walls of his marrow. Like an exorcism, he mused. It should have burned, the collision of something so pure and the dirty thing that slept inside his chest, jailed behind his ribs — but it didn't. Even the oxygen's glacial temperatures failed to freeze his guts; despite not being dressed, Remus felt enveloped by a mysterious cloak of warmth that followed him out of the house and into the deserted wilderness. It was a mantle, a safeguard of unexplainable origins he just couldn't bother to question. Protection was protection, and it had been so long since he had felt _held…_

No, he didn’t question it. Not when there more urging matters to him, when this world looked so new and inexperienced and extraordinary. And it was _his._

Everything surrounding him, the birds and the sky and the sun and the trees and the snow, it overwhelmed him with unwavering awe. Each new thing before his eyes became the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen, shining with the reflection of the sun rays that hit against the crystal snow. It was so… beautiful. Breathtaking. _There is so much to discover_ , he thought, _all of it mine, too,_ and danced his fingers against a tree's trunk. Under his palm, the bark was humid with snow, rough to the touch.

But it wasn't a palm, it wasn’t a _human_ palm formed of his pale skin and his moles and his unattractive calluses and his viciously bitten-to-the-nub nails — it was the paw of a wolf, with grey fur and thick pads and sharp claws, and in his horror he discovered that all this time he hadn't been a boy, but a wolf pretending to be one, dressed in sheep's clothing, a beast among men, and a howl of lonely despair is still ringing in his ears when he is suddenly awoken by James trying to shake him into consciousness because _carpe diem, Moony, or whatever-the-fuck_.

The four friends sit around the kitchen table of Potter Manor in complete silence, eating the full breakfasts laid by Euphemia Potter while they were still trying to shrug off the sleepiness clinging to their eyes. There’s sausages, baked beans, buttered toast, scrambled eggs and more are all squeezed together into a porcelain dish with lilac motifs that waits in front of Remus, ready to be eagerly devoured. If only the mere sight of such amount of food didn't manage to turn on his gag reflex.

Not only is it significantly more food than what he's accustomed to, from the breakfasts his mother makes to what he chooses to have when in school, but his stomach has, to put it simply, closed off, refusing anything to go down. It's quite the common symptom from the many that tend to linger on the days — or weeks, if he's unlucky enough — after the full moon, and it happens to him just as often as his appetite skyrockets because of the very same reasons. Having only two days gone by since his last transformation, Remus can still feel the effects of the beast's brutality in his worn-out bones. But despite the nausea, he sets a goal for himself to leave the plate as empty as possible, encouraged especially by the prospect of saddening James' mum if he doesn't. And so Remus pushes everything down, bile and all, and results on shoving a spoonful of beans into his mouth.

The silence is unbecoming in the lot of them, known around the hallways of school for the havoc they wreak behind them. _A walking_ _lodestone_ _for ruckus,_ Professor McGonagall called them on one particular occasion, lips pursed in a thin line tiptoeing between anger, contempt and, surprisingly enough, amusement. It happened all the way back in fourth year, when _someone_ animated the mounted lion head in the Gryffindor common room and forced it to roar to the lyrics of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

It wasn't their most impressive work. They've done far better; cleverer schemes, Remus thinks, bigger and shinier and greater, but on that week they were tired because of the semester nearing its end and Remus had broken three of his ribs — even breathing hurt for around a week after the full moon despite Madam Pomfrey's bone-mending medicines. He appreciated the distraction at the time, so full of affection for his friends that the pain of his body felt somewhat lighter.

Now, only the clinking of the cutlery against plates stands between Remus' enhanced ears and their heartbeats. His is low in his chest, low enough to miss a beat or two. The pauses sound like the flicker of a lightbulb.

 _At least it's there._ It calms him to be reminded of his existence, sometimes, when he can bear it. It’s just as calming as it is to take a look at his hands, a fleeting glance at most but long enough to confirm they’re _there_. They're ugly, too thin and too ruined; his fingers are too long and his nails too short. His skin is dry and probably unpleasant, though he’s never held anyone’s hand before; it’s not like he could ask. But at least they're his hands and not a wolf's paw.

He remembers, then, the dream. The house, the forest, the snow, the tree. _The wolf._ And just when he thought he could forget about it... A shiver runs down his spine, and he decides he doesn't want to eat anymore.

James' and Peter's plates might as well have been licked clean by the time Remus puts down his fork, defeated; there are still some beans and half of his toast left, but he feels like he has eaten enough for the rest of the day. For the week, even. His plate, however, isn't the least empty for once — Sirius' remains barely untouched. He's silent, arms crossed on the table and eyes lost in a world beyond their own. Remus wonders how he manages to tame the storm that must be raging inside of him, how he appears so calm while he’s so obviously breaking.

It's unsettling, to see Sirius like this. _Beaten_ _._ Out of their group, he's always been the one to walk on the waters with only his confidence and trademarked smirk to count on, like he could eat the world with a snap of his white teeth as if it were a piece of cake. The fierceness behind the black stones that are his eyes has faded to embers, the bruise in his right cheekbone is now sickly brown green, the colour of dying grass and depressing, humid summer days, and despite the fact that he’s wearing a threadbare t-shirt of James’ Remus can still imagine the scarred flesh he caught sight of the night before, when he walked in on Sirius undressing in the guest room. It wasn’t an unusual sight, having shared a dorm for five years with someone with a proclivity for nudity, but it felt so _wrong,_ so out of place, seeing Sirius’ exposed chest bare and his dignity in shambles.

Remus has never been stupid enough to mistake his friend for an invincible idol, but that doesn’t mean he likes being reminded of the fragility of Sirius’ bones behind his carefree facade.

The burn is small and thankfully of a small degree, now a pink blur of skin over Sirius’ heart, but Remus doubts it will ever leave. It's a magically-inflicted wound, after all, result of the Blacks’ tradition to link their family members' souls — if they even have one, which Remus is willing to doubt — to their family tree.

"They've burnt me off," he said last night with a hollow chuckle, and Remus could only flinch at the sound.

Right now Sirius is only a shell of himself. Naked of spirit, a ghost of the Sirius that Remus knows; _his_ Sirius, _their_ Sirius, the one with the ups and the downs and just the right set of instructions to either make Remus laugh himself breathless or build in him this animalistic pulsation that urges him to drive his fist across Sirius' face until he spits blood and phlegm and teeth and punches him right back. He feels gone now. He may look like Sirius and sound like Sirius and still smirk his trademarked smirk and wear his leather jackets and play an air guitar alongside the yelling of incoherent rock lyrics, but the boy sitting across the table from Remus feels like a stranger.

His head is practically bald, for fuck's sake. Only the roots of his thick black hair remain, a shameful reminder of what he's lost — what has been taken away from him.

Remus doesn't want to know what happened apart from the most superficial details. Doesn't think so, at least. He’s aware that Sirius has been itching to leave that house and part ways with the Blacks since the day he learned his home was not 12 Grimmauld Place but wherever his friends are. How could he not be, when he feels the same way? He knows that the breaks suffocate something in him the same way the lunar calendar suffocates something in Remus, that Walburga Black is a cruel excuse of a mother, that Sirius always wanted his final step out of that door to feel triumphal and what he got instead was anything but.

Yes, Remus can imagine the sequence of events that led to Sirius stumbling out of the Potters’ fireplace late in the evening. No, Remus will never ask to confirm. It doesn’t feel like something he would ever want to get right.

James snaps Sirius out of his trance, one stubborn finger nudging the still brimming plate. Sirius gives him an empty look and brings less than a spoonful of beans to his mouth, but at least it’s better than nothing.

They stare at each other, the four of them. Soundless as death, quieter than a burial. _What to do now?_

It's a good question, and it rings between them despite going unsaid. What _are_ they supposed to do now? James had urged Peter and Remus to come in a short and cryptic letter that only mildly explained Sirius' situation, and so Remus had packed a bag despite the exhaustion soaking his bones and Floo'd himself to Potter Manor only yesterday afternoon.

“I don’t know what to say to him,” Peter whispered to him in the darkness of the guest room they shared, too wired with the day’s anxieties to sleep. “I can’t just pretend he’s _fine._ And I want to help, I do, but… bloody hell, this is all messed up.”

Remus hummed in agreement, and that was it. Fifteen minutes later he could hear Peter’s soft snores from the other bed.

He just wishes he didn’t feel so — so _useless._ He and Sirius haven't spoken since March ; not properly, at least, face-to-face and tongues unleashed. All they do is tiptoe around the other, careful not to break the fragile glass that is the peace they stand on. If Remus opens his mouth, he’s afraid the rest of it is going to come out: the resentment, the pain, the betrayal that has been haunting him ever since the night of that fucking prank where everything almost fell apart, except that it _did._ Of course Sirius has apologized, of course Remus has forgiven him if only to stop the anxiety in Peter’s eyes and the ugly silences that so visibly pain James. Doesn’t mean there’s a part of him screaming his throat raw as it demands that Sirius hurts like Remus has been all these months, quietly bleeding because he keeps picking at the scab, even if the mere idea of laying a punch like that on Sirius when he’s at his worst is beyond sickening.

Remus can’t say anything. He can’t be the one who makes this worse.

_What to do now?_

Maybe James hadn't thought further ahead than _Sirius needs us, so we must be_ _there_ _with him_ _and hope it’s enough_ _._ Maybe there doesn't need to be anything else. James has always been optimistic like that, full of hopes, full of light. James alone is capable enough to fill the cracks of their friend’s broken armour with his unconditional love, his unfaltering loyalty and devotion.

And Remus is no James.

How is he supposed to build someone back together if he's only a wolf? A wolf who kills, a wolf who wrecks, a wolf who ruins it all.

Sunrays leak through the window because of the lack of curtains, a hue of yellow warmth invading the kitchen. The light hits Sirius in the back of his naked head and Remus right in his eyes, almost blinding him completely except for the clear stark outline of Sirius' hunched figure.

“Fucking — Merlin fucking Jesus _Christ_ ,” Remus mutters, tongue still loose with sleepiness.

Sirius snorts, and Peter gasps, and then Sirius is _cackling_ , loud and bright and full of delight. It’s so ridiculous, Remus can’t help but join in, and soon enough so are James and Peter.

That’s how Fleamont finds them, alerted by all the noise: four boys, bent over themselves, breathless and laughing laughing laughing like they never would have thought possible before breakfast.

Remus thinks they are going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this like 2 years ago and found it again this week only to realize it wasn't that bad. this is my first time posting on ao3 so i'm kinda nervous, but if you made it this far thank you so much for reading! title's from detail of the woods by richard siken.


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